Eye Tricks

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Another Moon Illusion - The lunar eclipse illusion

This is a different moon illusion. You might also like to just look at the lunar eclipse pictures, even if you aren't interested in the illusion!

pringles tricky truck

Here are some pictures that I took of the lunar eclipse on February 20, 2008. The classic moon illusion that you are most likely already familiar with is the one in which the moon looks much larger than it really is, especially when it is close to the horizon.

What I am demonstrating here is that since we all instantly recognize the moon, and we know it is round, we take the little data we have in our minds about the tiny crescent, and form the rest of the moon in our mind, even though most of the surface of the moon is the same shade of black as the background. This is an example of our mind filling in the blanks for us, and extrapolating the outline of a circle for farther than it really goes.

To see the illusion, just take a look at the moon (taken at different times, and merged together into one lunar eclipse image) and you'll notice exactly what I'm talking about. Each moon shape appears to be round, but that's just our eyes. If in fact, the left half of the moon had been bitten off by a giant monster just a few minutes before the eclipse, I'm sure no one would have noticed!

The nice thing about taking the pictures during a lunar eclipse, is that you can see how it progressed through time and the moon was in the exact same place each time.

Please rate this illusion/picture. Your ratings help us choose which new optical illusions to create:

Best of the Best ...

Most Popular for October 2009:

	Same Shade Diamonds Our newest optical illusion. We just created it on 10/10/2009 Wow! It will look like the diamonds on the top are much darker than the diamonds on the bottom. You won't believe how amazing this incredible optical illusion is.
	Moving Backgrounds Created 9/24/2009 It moves! You must zoom in to get the full illusion. You'll see the rings rotate, even though they are not moving at all. We've created several sizes so you can use as your desktop background.
	Scary Faces Illusion Created 9/17/2009 Watch as the scary faces disappear before your eyes. The longer you stare the stronger the illusion. Perfect to send to your friends for Halloween!
	The Obama Illusion We made this original Barack Obama Illusion and then we made it famous! Stare for about 30 seconds and you'll see his ghostly image appear on the wall!
	Valentines Day Love Test Illusion This is one of our most highly rated illusions by our visitors. Watch the hearts disappear before your very eyes! This is really cool. You'll start to see the hearts disappear as you fixate at the center. Don't miss it.
	Moving Spiral Illusion A version of our original moving spiral illusion was recently published in a popular college textbook. It uses multiple illusory principles to give the illusion that it is moving when it is absolutely not moving. Big enough to be your desktop background!
	Build Your Own Impossible Triangle Instructions so you can build your own impossible triangle. Tell M.C. Escher that it's not so impossible after all! Comes with a printable PDF guide with dotted lines for the folds and clearly marked lines to cut. See pictures of visitors submitted triangles too!

If you don't have time to see the hundreds of illusions today, see if you can at least catch all of these...

Cool Optical Illusions Blog - Don't miss it!
Love Test - Don't you just love optical illusions.
Blue Spiral Wallpaper - Love it!
Moving Spiral
Scary Illusion
Optical Illusion Collection
Inverted American Flag
Freaky Desktop Wallpaper
Floating 3d Cube Sculpture - HOT
Rotating Moving Spots - Very Strong.
Build your own impossible triangle - A classic, one of our most popular of all time.
Color Blindness Test - Better test yourself before it's too late, like it was for Dwayne in the movie Little Miss Sunshine!
Illusion Links
Jesus Illusion - Always fun, even if you've already seen it!

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